Members of Maine’s congressional delegation on Sunday denounced President Trump’s blatant effort to overturn the will of Georgia voters in his favor.

In a rare display of accord, Republican Sen. Susan Collins, independent Sen. Angus King and Democratic Reps. Chellie Pingree and Jared Golden expressed their displeasure with a taped hourlong phone call Trump made Saturday to Georgia election officials pressuring them to find 11,780 votes, or just enough for him to win that state’s presidential election over Democratic President-elect Joe Biden.

King, who caucuses with Democrats, issued the harshest criticism, saying, “President Trump’s efforts to pressure the Georgia Secretary of State into actual election fraud would make Richard Nixon blush.” Nixon, a Republican and the nation’s 37th president, resigned from office in 1974 in the midst of the Watergate scandal.

Clockwise from top left: Sen. Angus King, Sen. Susan Collins, Rep. Jared Golden and Rep. Chellie Pingree

Collins reminded Trump that the election is past, that the voters have spoken, and that trying to dig up votes at the last minute is not going to work.

“The election in Georgia, and in all the states, is over,” Collins said in statement Sunday evening. “The people have voted, the electors have voted, and the Congress will formally count the votes on Jan. 6. A new Congress was sworn in today and a new President will be inaugurated on Jan. 20. It is too late to find votes.”

King tore into Trump’s effort to find votes for his campaign that Georgia election officials insist just don’t exist.

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“Let’s call this what it is: an overt, corrupt attempt to overturn the will of the voters,” King said in a statement Sunday night. “We would rightly condemn this behavior if it occurred in another nation, and we should oppose it even more forcefully at home.”

“My colleagues who are supporting this week’s anti-democratic sideshow should listen to this recording, and think twice about if they’re truly ready to go down in history with a President who so clearly and desperately wants to delegitimize democracy,” King said.

Collins and King were among a bipartisan group of senators who issued a joint statement Sunday calling on their colleagues in the Senate to certify the results of the presidential election on Wednesday.

In a separate statement regarding the certification vote, King said: “We are experiencing one of the most serious assaults upon our country’s democratic system in American history. The President and a growing number of his Congressional enablers are plotting to overturn a legitimate election result, while simultaneously urging their supporters to take to the streets around the Capitol this week to intimidate or worse. These efforts are profoundly unpatriotic and stand no chance of succeeding.”

The president’s phone conversation with Georgia election officials drew a harsh response from Pingree, who represents Maine’s 1st District.

“President Trump’s failed attempts to overturn the will of the voters are reprehensible, even for him,” Pingree said in a statement Sunday evening. “He lost the election by a whopping 7 million votes, a landslide by any objective judgement.”

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“An American President has never so aggressively abused his office to cling to power, power the voters made clear that they no longer trust him to have,” Pingree said. “President Trump’s clear intimidation of Georgia’s top election official and overall contempt for our free elections is a stain on the presidency that will not be easily erased.”

“The collective silence of Republican members of Congress to President Trump’s undermining of the peaceful transfer of power makes this situation far more dangerous,” Pingree added.

Golden, who represents Maine’s 2nd District, reacted Sunday by saying it’s time for Trump to respect the will of the voters.

“The votes for president have been cast and counted, and in some states recounted,” Golden said in a statement. “Appeals have been filed with courts up to and including the Supreme Court, and in each instance these challenges have been rejected. Voters have spoken, and our democratic and legal processes have been allowed to play out.”

“Later this week, I will do my duty and join with members of both parties to vote to confirm the results of the 2020 presidential election,” he added.

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